Long Hui Hua Yao Hua

Explore the wonder of Hua Yao!

分割线

Huayao is a unique branch of Yao minority and inhabits in poor mountainous areas of Longhui County, Hunan province. The people are simple and honest and the resources are abundant in this area, but the average GDP per capita is less than 1/4 of the country’s average GDP per capita. To increase the income of local residents and achieve sustainable development of natural resources, economy and culture, we launched Hua Yao Hua project in 2014, hoping that through systematic methods of community research and social innovation, we can protect the unique local natural and cultural landscapes (especially intangible cultural heritage) and seek innovative business model to the diverse industrial output. To this end, we set up a team whose members are from various fields, such as culture studies, video production, fashion design, business model research, etc. Then, we founded HYH brand for local cultural products and selected 100 products from local “cultural goods” and “derivative products” individually. Further, combining with online website,we built a social innovation practice base in Huayao area to construct the O2O social innovation platform.

Starting from June 2014, the Hua Yao Hua team launched the “New Channel ·Hua Yao Hua” summer camp and organized innovative design workshops. Teachers and students from Hong Kong Polytechnic, Hunan University, Tsinghua University etc., participated in the Summer Camp, cooperated with professional designers, and designed hundreds of products based on local culture. Some of the design products include: Hua Yao Hua branding design, environmentally friendly home decoration, and tea bag featuring a type of local flower, children’s book and APP.

From the coming July to August, supported by local government and sponsored by Markor Home Furnishings, designers and researchers from France, Italy, South Korea, Britain, Hong Kong and Mainland China will come to Huayao area to conduct interdisciplinary research in various fields, exploring a network-based, sustainable and open model for culture protection and industrial development and promoting the integration of culture and technology.